Macomb Sheriff rejects pleas for added patrol in north end of county

Macomb County Sheriff Anthony Wickersham has rejected pleas by township officials to add more law enforcement patrols to the north end of the county.

Four townships --- Bruce, Ray, Armada and Richmond -- saw the number of patrol cars chopped from five to one four years ago as then-sheriff Mark Hackel coped with budget cuts. Those four townships each put millage proposals on the 2012 election ballots to finance contracts for additional Sheriff's Department services but all four communities voted down the tax proposals.

After investing a lot of time and effort into promoting the virtues of a customized sheriff's contract for each township during the '12 election campaigns, Wickersham is not receptive to calls for additional patrols in those nonpaying communities. A major sticking point is the $500,000 annual cost for one additional sheriff's deputy car.

The request for beefed up law enforcement did not come from any of the four townships. Instead, it was a request from officials in two of the five communities that have pay-for-service contracts with the Sheriff's Department.

Washington Township Supervisor Dan O'Leary explained that his community pays for seven deputies but those officers spend more than 30 percent of their time serving as "back-up" cops on an emergency basis for the one roving patrol car in the nonpaying townships.

"Washington, Lenox, Macomb -- they should not be punished for doing the right thing and then only get 70 cents on the dollar. We ... are footing the bill for these other towns," said O'Leary, a second-term Republican supervisor.

Ron Trombley, supervisor of Lenox Township, managed to boost funding so that his community now receives 24/7 protection from the Sheriff's Department. But Trombley, like O'Leary, is frustrated that round-the-clock coverage is routinely disrupted by providing aid to the roving car in neighboring communities when a potentially dangerous situation arises.

The two other communities that have contracted services with the Sheriff's Department, rather than a local police department, are New Haven and Harrison Township.

At a meeting last week of the county Board of Commissioners' Justice and Public Safety Committee, Commissioner Kathy Vosburg, the Chesterfield Township Republican who chairs the committee, said the decision whether to pursue a second roving patrol car is entirely within Wickersham's authority. O'Leary, Trombley and Wickersham addressed the committee on the subject of sheriff's deputy patrols.

The county's chief legal counsel, George Brumbaugh, said the county cannot charge a fee to a nonpaying community for each back-up situation in which a second car is provided from a paying community.

Jim Tignanelli, former Bruce Township supervisor and president of the Police Officers Association of Michigan union, agreed that the sheriff's constitutional duties are to provide adequate personnel for every potentially dangerous situation, such as a domestic violence situation or a report of gunshots fired.

Since the cutbacks of 2009, residents living in the four nonpaying townships receive no routine service from the roving patrol car if they call 911. Calls about noise, vandalism, a car crash with no injuries or even a home break-in where the burglar has fled will not generate a response from the lone deputy on patrol. Residents in those situations are told to drive to the Sheriff's Office in Mount Clemens and file a report.

According to Wickersham, the $500,000 price tag for one additional roving patrol car includes salaries and benefits for four deputies who would handle the additional 24/7 service, plus the cost of the car, gasoline, maintenance and police equipment. The money would come out of the county budget.

While his hands are tied by safety issues in back-up situations, Wickersham agrees with O'Leary that the four townships that rejected their own police contract are taking advantage of a situation in which they know that patrol cars from surrounding communities will come to their aid.

"I'm paying for a service and our deputies spend about one-third of their time in towns where people don't pay for this service," O'Leary said. "If I was them, if I was getting a service for free, I probably wouldn't want to pay for it either."